Friday, September 24, 2010

Looks like another busy weekend for your humble scribe. Hell, it’s been a busy week.

Among the various scribbling I’ve done lately is a review of a book called Peak Performance Poker by Travis Steffen which went up over on Betfair today.

I liked this book more than I thought I would, and can see myself going back to it again to reread some of its advice.

It’s really more of a sports psychology book than a poker book per se, but the advice readily applies to the situation faced by poker players, I think. All about improving the body and the mind, and how those two necessarily go together.

Funny, one bit of advice Steffen gives concerns making “to do” lists, something I already tended to do before but was encouraged to keep doing after reading his recommendation. Helps me a lot just to stay organized and get things done, not to mention the small but significant pleasure one gets from striking those items off the list one by one.

Anyhow, I did like the book, so if you are looking for something like this to read you might consider putting it on your list.

On the “to do” list for me this weekend are a few items, including a last bit of work with the PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker which finally comes to an end after three-plus weeks. The big one is Sunday -- Event No. 62, a.k.a. the “Main Event,” a $5,200 buy-in, two-day, no-limit hold’em tournament which not only comes with a jaw-dropping $10 million guarantee, but also a $2 million guarantee for first. That’s gonna be one decent ROI for someone, come Monday.

Last year 2,144 entered the big one at WCOOP, meaning it eclipsed the $10 million guarantee. Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko took it down, earning a little over $1.71 million. J.P. “djk123” Kelly made the final table, finishing fourth, as was Jamie “Xaston” Kaplan (whom I was writing about earlier this week), who took fifth.

I’ll also be continuing to follow the Main Event (Event No. 5, £10,350 NLHE) over at the World Series of Poker Europe this weekend. Looks like they ended up drawing 346 entrants this time around, which is up from last year (334) though not as high as the 362 who played in both 2007 and 2008.

And this afternoon I’ll definitely be checking in to see who wins the rubber match between Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy and Gus Hansen in the finals of WSOPE Event No. 4, the £10,350 NLHE heads-up event.

(EDIT [added 9/25/10]: That third match was postponed, as both players were involved in Day 1b of the WSOPE Main Event on Friday. Again, as I wrote about earlier this week, the situation reminds me of what happened this summer at the WSOP at the Heads-Up event there. Also makes me wonder about the best way to handle structures in heads-up tourneys.)

You probably heard about Dwyte Pilgrim winning the World Poker Tour Borgata tourney last night. I have to say Pilgrim and Collopy might be two of the most entertaining players I’ve covered at events this year, so it is kind of fun to see both doing well this week. Hansen is always an interesting guy to watch, too -- definitely too bad the WSOPE heads-up event isn’t being televised anywhere.

Heard over Twitter Hansen was playing Angry Birds earlier today. Have you played that game? I wouldn’t think Travis Steffen would recommend it as part of one’s “game day” preparation. Those damn green pigs! Puts me on tilt just thinking of ’em, sitting there staring at me with their dumb grins after I’ve failed to take ’em out.